Editor and film critic Matt Singer chronicles how two men from the heartland of the United States popularized film criticism for the common man and turned the art of debate into a TV format.
Siskel & Ebert starred the eponymous film critics, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, as they dished out reviews of the latest films. The intro promo of their TV program opens with a view of the downtown Chicago skyline. A newspaper swirls into the foreground, and the headline reads: “Siskel & Ebert.” The next shot finds Siskel, dressed in a tan blazer and V-neck sweater, typing away on his desktop computer, the desk covered in stacks of books and Post-Its. Next there’s a shot of Ebert, dressed similarly but with a red tie and in darker colors, typing away on an assignment too, except he’s typing on a typewriter (as the year is 1986), his desk covered in knickknacks and miniature sculptures.
The following few shots go by quickly: Ebert walks past a printing press; Siskel hails a yellow cab; Ebert gives a thumbs up to passersby; Siskel asks a newsstand employee where the papers are when a blue truck (“Read Siskel” printed on its side) pulls up; next up is a red truck with “Trust Ebert” printed on its side. Then the two men pick up their respective papers and walk side by side, presumably arguing about whose opinion on the latest blockbuster wins out: Siskel stabs his fingers into the newsprint to make his point while Ebert shakes his head no in disagreement.
Disagreement, differences in opinion, a strong-willed contrarianism — these are qualities that become emblematic of Siskel and Ebert’s interactions with one another on screen. ScreenCrush editor and film critic Matt Singer contends that these qualities make the duo stand out in his book Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever (352 pgs., G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2023, $29). A dual biography of Siskel and Ebert, a work of movie criticism, and a history of how two men influenced an industry — Opposable Thumbs tells the two decades-plus story of when film criticism was dramatic and exciting.
Produced by The Walt Disney Company, Siskel & Ebert aired from 1986 to 1999, but before that, their collaboration on TV had a handful of different iterations and names. Their collaboration first started in 1975 on the local Chicago TV station WTTW with the show Opening Soon at a Theater Near You, but the mouthful of a title was soon shortened to Opening Soon, and two years into working together, the show was renamed to the snackable Sneak Previews, which was syndicated nationally from 1977 to 1982.
From 1982 to 1986, their collaboration was renamed again to At the Movies and distributed by Tribune Broadcasting. After that, they ran with Siskel & Ebert & The Movies (Siskel & Ebert, for short). Their collaboration ended when Siskel suddenly died of terminal brain cancer in 1999. Ebert would continue on with the format, bringing in other critics to assist him.
The two critics worked together professionally for more than two decades, and in that time, they showed how to make film criticism entertaining by fueling long-standing competition, sparking heated debates, and establishing a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating system as part of their brand.
Singer, who worked as a contributing critic on Ebert Presents: At the Movies in college, found the old dictum, “There are always two sides to every story,” to be inexhaustible when your subjects could hardly agree. Every big step and new venture in their working relationship is narrated as if through a glass prism, with each person’s telling highlighting an inconspicuous detail. In the story of how they finally worked together, Ebert maintained that neither wanted to work with the author, but early show producer at Chicago’s TV station WTTW Thea Flaum recalled that Siskel took the harder stance.
By the time Siskel and Ebert started working together, the differences between the two critics couldn’t have been starker. Siskel, 29 years old in 1975, was raised in Chicago and received an Ivy League education at Yale. Ebert, three years older, was raised in the middle of Illinois, in Urbana, where he went to college at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Siskel loved staying up late, gambling, competition, and brutal honesty. He was an idealist, a dogged interviewer, and a fiercely private person, although to friends and family he was kind and selfless. In Singer’s chapter on Ebert, the critic comes across as a precocious young journalist. Despite experiencing isolation in childhood, he was a charming storyteller and could be the life of a work party. He was hungry for knowledge and observed life like a hawk. His skills as a writer brought him to co-write the screenplay of the cult film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (released in 1970).
Through Singer’s excellent research, the movie might be one interesting source for the beginning of the rivalry between Siskel and Ebert. In a harsh review of the film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls Siskel noted, “Boredom aplenty is provided by a screenplay which for some reason had been turned over to a screenwriting neophyte.” Never mind that five years later, that neophyte would earn a Pulitzer Prize for his criticism.
Their rivalry was fully stoked as critics at competing newspapers, Siskel at the Chicago Tribune, and Ebert at the Chicago Sun-Times. Out of their competing tastes and sharp wit came one of the most memorable professional collaborations. Singer writes, “Siskel & Ebert was the first and perhaps greatest TV show in history where the struggle between the two antagonists was entirely intellectual,” writes Singer. “Tensions were never resolved with fistfights or shoot-outs, but with conversation and analysis.”
Matt Singer has written a touching remembrance of Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert in Opposable Thumbs. His childhood fandom of both critics, his countless interviews with their colleagues and fellow journalists, his years of watching the entire catalog of episodes have resulted in a thoughtful book. He’s praising and honest of their contribution to the journalism and entertainment industries. “[Siskel and Ebert] turned film criticism from a solitary pursuit plied by a handful of journalists and scholars into a massively popular endeavor — and sometimes a spectator sport — practiced by thousands and watched by millions,” he writes. Elsewhere in the book, Singer remarks that “[Siskel and Ebert] turned the idea of two guys talking about movies into a veritable multimedia empire.”
(By Luis Polanco)
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